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Gaming on the Run

This blog category will deal with my approach to fitting in as much gaming as I can around work and family life. It’s not unique – see, for example, The Dice of Life – but may be of value, or at least interest, to like-minded souls.

Some constraints under which I will have to operate:

Time: On weekday evenings I have odd gaps of 10-30 minutes, in which I can write a blog post or do some preparation; and on Saturday night, a slot of 90-120 minutes when the rest of the family is otherwise occupied. All gaming activities must fit into those, along with reading, computer games, watching movies, surfing the web etc. Such other leisure time as I used to have has been consumed by commuting and the practice of holding meetings outside what are still laughingly called office hours.

Space: On the weekday evenings I have access to a desktop 18″ x 24″, which may or may not have piles of bills, letters, etc left behind by other family members consuming parts of it. On Saturday night I have a table roughly 5′ x 3′. I have two areas of cupboard space, 2′ high x 2′ deep x 4′ wide, in which all the gaming accoutrements must be kept concealed so that they don’t frighten visitors. (I blame all those newsagents who keep the wargaming and modelling magazines next to the pornography, thus linking the two in the minds of the general public.)

Money: After a little thought, the first lesson I learn from Gaming on the Run is that actually, money is not a limiting factor for me. Given the type of gaming I do (RPG or skirmish) and the space constraints, I will only need a couple of dozen figures and the rulebooks; I don’t expect I will have the room to store terrain anyway, so assume I must do without. Shame really, but there you go.

I shall divide the necessities for gaming into People (figures and characters), Places (the fields of battle, in whatever form), Plots (scenarios), Props (equipment, both for the characters and myself) and Rules, and hopefully conquer them piecemeal. We shall see.

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2 thoughts on “Gaming on the Run”

I think these constraints are very common for many gamers with non-gaming families and friends or with jobs that demand a lot of their time. I’m looking forward to reading future posts. When I get the time, I’ll plug this post over on The Dice of Life as I think it’ll be of interest to our readers.

In regards to morning commute, I’ve discovered that taking public transportation for my work commute has given me an opportunity to find more time for reading and reviewing content for RPGs. I was tempted to write an article about this, but I’m unsure of two things:

1. It’s not enough to warrant a full article.
2. Public transportation isn’t necessarily available for everyone.